


sic itur ad astra

by daisuga



Series: Omnia Vincit Amor [2]
Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: M/M, i am so so fucked, im sorry i just.... . .. just. ...j . .. us..t...., title means "thus you shall go to the stars"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 00:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisuga/pseuds/daisuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he closes his eyes, he can feel himself being enveloped by the memories, and he'll want to stay there, always, always.</p><p>Because in his dreams, Mihashi is still alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sic itur ad astra

**Author's Note:**

> please feel free to hit me ha ha ha i'm

 

He breathe in the cold January air, feeling it invade his insides like ice picks. Snow is falling down and his eyes are assaulted by the amount of white he can see; Saitama, with the nostalgia it brings, hits him as hard as the wind blowing through his scarf. As he adjusts it, he almost feels offended. 

He trudges through the snow, lights lit overhead, people walking with and against his current. He lets Hanai's direction take over his head, feet on autopilot.

(He passes through a familiar territory and averts his eyes.)

He thinks about where he's going, and where he's staying. The keys feel heavy in his pocket, and he tries not to be bitter about the fact that Tajima and Hanai is still together, even after all the years, sharing an apartment in Bunkyo (courtesy of Hanai) and a small house in Saitama (courtesy of Tajima).

(It's not their fault, he reminded himself, that they lasted that long, strong and resilient beside each other.)

Now he's walking alone--path leading to their house, because his family already left long ago, favoring Tokyo, where everyone else seems to be at, studying and playing and working.

But he stayed somewhere else, alone.

   
Alone at Osaka.

 

* * *

 

He's not alone, initially, when he moved to study to Osaka; even now, years after, he can still hear the familiar stuttering of that voice: "Hanshin Tigers!" being exclaimed at the same time, followed by laughter. Scalding touches, kisses that tasted like forever and "I like you", warm hands against cold, calloused ones.

(The shade of light-brown hair that's just right and smiles that throws him off--)

If he closes his eyes, he can feel himself being enveloped by the memories, and he'll want to stay there, always,  _always_.

 

 Because in his dreams, Mihashi is still alive.

 

* * *

 

They didn't get along at first.

 

Abe was an entity made of roughness and is the world's most proficient at denying everything. Mihashi was soft, fragile and easy to crumble--made of every anxious nerves that god ever created.

Abe was not good for him.

 

(He was a storm--a typhoon, and Mihashi was a quiet village. Abe was not good for him.)

 

He sent fear into Mihashi's already fearful bones, watched him come undone before him, fascinated and scared and confused, all at once.

(He doesn't mean to make Mihashi breakdown. But it was because of that that their relationship started--because he earned Mihashi's trust and in return, he devoted himself to Mihashi.)

 

(It took them years, but they got it right in the end.)

 

* * *

 

Abe does not remember when "I like you not only as a pitcher but also as a person" became "I love you as much as I love baseball, and maybe even more."

But he does remember these:

  1. He cried when they first kissed. Mihashi panicked and Abe  
laughed in spite of himself, hugging him through his tears,   
touch whispering "I love you"s and "Thank you"s.
  2. Mihashi in his arms was like holding a box full of stars. He   
felt like a fragile yet infinite constant, an "always" engraved  
in human flesh, just for Abe.
  3. The last time he saw Mihashi  ~~alive~~ , he was smiling.  
  




* * *

 

The house is cold, but it took him a second to realize that it's just him.

(Because everything that Hanai and Tajima has is warm and alive and he tries to quell the " _why them_ " growing in his mind.)

He sets down his bag, falling down on the couch.

He closes his eyes and took a breathe.

 

* * *

 

It first happened during a game, and they thought that it was just fatigue then.

 Mihashi was a runner on third, and the batter hit a home-run; he started running, better than he was back at high school, the dug-out screaming.

It was after he stepped on the plate by home that his knees suddenly gave out and he fell, gasping for air. Abe was there before anyone else, panicked and fusing until the first aid crew gently pulled him away,  _please, sir, calm down_ \--

 

Fortunately, back then, they won still and Mihashi managed to turn out okay.

Abe should've pressed harder, then, but he was too relieved and exhausted and he just held Mihashi, glad that he's still alive.

 

* * *

 

There's a piano piece that Mihashi always listen to.

Abe heard it so many times that it's almost like some form of a muscle memory that triggers a whole lot of things for him to remember. He could identify it the moment the first note plays, now.

And he wonders, sometimes, if it's even okay that he can remember these memories vividly and as accurate as Mihashi's pitches, hitting the foundations of his being like how the pitches hit his mitt. 

There's only an amount of these high-definition memories that he can take before he turns away:

The piano notes vibrating throughout the room. A cold hand in his. The apartment they had and the sunshine filtering through it at nine in the morning. The IV attached. White walls, sickening ammonia and the waiting room that always feels like a pity party room. Shaking. Please don't forget me, Takaya. I love you, Takaya.

 

He inhales sharply.

 

* * *

   ~~ _a shaking; tears, kisses, a promise of forevers, and it's still not enough._~~

* * *

 

_(In another lifetime, Mihashi and him lives happily in Osaka, a well-known battery of the Hanshin Tigers, content.)_

 

He stands by Mihashi's coffin, and he stopped everything altogether.

His hand lifted itself to touch the edge of the coffin, and he's staring at Mihashi's face--pale and smiling  ~~and dead~~.

There's a million things running through his head, but nothing made sense and he crouched, sobbing, breathless, messy tears, eyes wide, and all he can say outloud is  _"Why?"_

 

_(This is not that lifetime.)_

 

* * *

 

The final blow was made during the game against the Giants, top of the ninth, Tigers leading by one run. It was Tajima's at-bat.

 

He motioned for a fastball, and Mihashi nodded, windup perfect, face focused--

then it morphed into something like deep pain, and he collapsed, coughing, and Tajima and Abe ran, game be damned, and Abe approached critical mass, because all he can see was red, r _ed everywhere_ \--

 

 

Mihashi was coughing blood, and they all stared at it in horror, and Mihashi paled and blacked-out.

Tajima stayed with him by the waiting room and didn't say anything when he started crying.

 

* * *

 

Abe visits the cemetery after settling in and sending Hanai a message, his medical books abandoned on the top of the coffee table in the living room. 

 

The snow is falling slowly, soft and merciful, landing on his scarf and hair. He kneels down in front of the tombstone, refusing to read it.

 

(He already knows what it says and he refuses to dig his own grave, refuses to make everything worse.)

 

He instead rested his forehead against it. He swallows and almost choked, barely breathing. The last time he visited was two years ago, with everyone else, and it was spring and it didn't feel as heavy as it does now. He remembers about the field well him and Mihashi talked about, once; a well resting somewhere where the boundary of the field and woods lie, hidden, not a single fence built around it. It's old and dark and deep, and when you fall, no one will probably hear you.

 He remembers his hands, and an almost playful 'I'll be safe as long as Abe-kun is with me'. A snort, an 'of course, dumbass' and a tightened grip.

Now he's cold and alone and his eyes sting, lungs wanting to give up, like his soul, like his heart, like how all of him wants to throughout the years he spent in their apartment in Osaka alone, surrounded with past tense and what was left of Mihashi.

 

 He whispered, "I'm home, Ren," and closed his eyes, feeling like he fell into the field well--yelling and yelling for Mihashi, but never heard.

 

* * *

 

 

He dreams of Mihashi telling him to be happy. He'll always be smiling, hands warm against Abe's, and it's up to the point where he can't even tell if it really happened or not.

He cries when he wakes up, either way.

 

* * *

 

 "I don't...I-I don't want to die, Takaya," Mihashi looks up at him, eyes wide and clear.

 _"You're not going to die,"_  Abe wants to say, but he can't lie, not now, not ever, so he takes Mihashi's hand and kiss him. 

"It's okay," was the strangled reply--Abe's vision is already blurry, but he managed to force that out. "I'm...I'll be here."

Mihashi inhales, closing his eyes, exhales and looks up at him, again, this time smiling. "Y-Yeah."

 

"I'm not scared, because T-Takaya's here with me."

 

Abe tightens his grip and stares at their hands, his mapping out Mihashi's calloused hands, and he remembers that day at the back of the field, where suddenly they're fifteen again, young and ready to take on Koushien.

 

"Takaya is always, always w-with...me. Thank you...for that. That's why I'm n-not scared. I'll a-always be in your heart."

 

Abe takes a deep breath. He wants to deny it, believing that maybe when he does, it won't happen. 

But he just brings Mihashi's hands on his cheeks.

 

"Yeah. You'll always be in my heart. I'm just here."

**Author's Note:**

> abe takaya is a big baby he cried when mihashi thanked him in the middle of a game he cried when he thought about how hard mihashi worked and he'll probably cry when they first kissed and when they have sex i cant believe this dork


End file.
